From oracle-admin@cs.indiana.edu Fri Jan 26 15:52:23 2001
Received: (from daemon@localhost)
by moose.cs.indiana.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3/IUCS_2.29) id PAA20366;
Fri, 26 Jan 2001 15:22:00 -0500 (EST)
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 15:22:00 -0500 (EST)
From: Internet Oracle
Message-Id: <200101262022.PAA20366@moose.cs.indiana.edu>
To: oracle-list@cs.indiana.edu
Subject: Internet Oracularities #1203
Reply-To: oracle-vote@cs.indiana.edu
X-Face: )/f9dPAX/dU$1Z!U(/?A
PiIJvIOtcN@L.>6,2OKd."T#S7b*{feRf.Kns23^P9.Ak{GdWWv]0*1E}RJ)_idU:(5VkN*_+bB
kyrnLfC12B>V/q=z32:05`EcAd.!z#3k]h)O!ZU^E"f`@),(2WT
X-Planation: X-Face can be viewed with ftp.cs.indiana.edu:/pub/faces.
=== 1203 =================================================================
Title: Internet Oracularities #1203
Compiled-By: Steve Kinzler
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 15:22:00 -0500 (EST)
To find out all about the Internet Oracle (TM), including how to
participate, send mail to oracle@cs.indiana.edu with the word "help"
in the subject line. ("Internet Oracle" is a trademark of Stephen
B Kinzler.)
Let us know what you like! Send your ratings of these 10 Oracularities
on an integer scale of 1 ("very poor") to 5 ("very good") with the
volume number to oracle-vote@cs.indiana.edu (probably just reply to this
message). For example:
1203
2 1 3 4 3 5 3 3 4 1
1198 65 votes 77jkc bcli3 gom30 hhf97 4ekk7 cdkc8 9eeia 6erc6 7jjf5 doj72
1198 2.8 mean 3.4 2.8 2.2 2.6 3.2 2.9 3.1 3.0 2.9 2.4
--- 1203-01 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: "BJ"
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> Hi, I heard there's a lovely lass called Asil living there. Can I meet
> her?
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} Sure! Let me introduce you Supplicant, this is Asil.
}
}
}
} ,etisoppo tcerid eht ma I ,ees uoY .uoy teem ot desaelp m'I !iH
} dneirflrig s'eirrO fo ,egami rorrim eht yas thgim eno tcaf ni
} .asiL
}
} lacitnedi emos ekil ,taht naht eroM .ees uoy ,sniwt lacitnedi er'eW
} latot evah I .tnempoleved ruo ni ecalp koot lasrever railucep a ,sniwt
} .niwt ym fo noitcelfer tcefrep a ma I taht snaem hcihw ,susrever sutis
} reh ,s'elpoep tsom ekiL .dednah-tfel ma I ;dednah-thgir si ehS
} ,sdaeh ruo fo pot eht tA .tfel ym no si enim ;thgir reh no si xidneppa
} esiwkcolc sworg sreh ,lrohw elttil a ni rehtegot semoc riah eht erehw
} gnitteg s'taht ,llew ... tfel reH .esiwkcolcretnuoc sworg enim elihw
} I yaw eht setah eirrO .murof ylimaf a si siht dna etavirp elttil a
} .lrig fo dnik sdrawkcab a m'I tub ,epyt
}
} There, now that you're introduced and all, I think Asil had better go
} write in the mirror some more.
}
} You owe the Oracle a collection of palindromes.
--- 1203-02 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: "BJ"
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> I hire toilets for a living!
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} That's ironic, because I spout [CENSORED] for mine.
}
} What the...? [CENSORED]. [CENSORED]. You mean I can't say [CENSORED]
} in an Oracularity?! How about [CENSORED] then? Or [CENSORED]? Which
} son of a [CENSORED] is censoring my omni-[CENSORED]-potent wisdom?!
} What [CENSORED] [CENSORED] dares to [CENSORED] with my divine
} [CENSORED] right to dispence my pearls of [CENSORED] to the waiting
} queue of ungrateful, horse [CENSORED], [CENSORED] [CENSORED],
} [CENSORED] salami [CENSORED] Supplicants!
}
} Oh.
} Hi Mum.
} Sorry, yes I'll clear up my temple... No, Lisa and I haven't really
} thought about... No, I didn't miss his birthday... Look this haircut is
} all the rage now... No... Yes...
}
} Look supplicant, this could take some time. You owe the Oracle a good
} [CENSORED] - Ow! Look, I said I was - OW!
--- 1203-03 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: "Mark Lawrence (lawrence.4@osu.edu)"
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> The Oracle is too smart for our own good,
>
> How can I impress my computer?
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} If you've got a small harddrive, I've always found that throwing wads
} of cache around works well.
}
} You owe the Oracle a pile of Floppy and Zip Drive jokes.
--- 1203-04 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: MVSOPEN@aol.com
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> Oracle, wisest diety, most meteorologically endowed, I kneel
> before thee. I am depressed. I hate this country. The sky is
> greyish white, it looks as if the whole country is in a large
> glass of milk. What can I do to feel happier?
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} Patience, patience little sperm, you and your neighbors are
} all soon to be taking a trip out in to the wide world! After
} which you'll plummet to the ground behind a barn, and then a
} dog will lick you up. But you will be traveling! That's what
} is important!
}
} You don't owe the Oracle a thing.
--- 1203-05 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: "Paul L. Kelly"
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> Here in Australia we are, as you know,
>
> umop episdn
>
> in many aspects, and we try to rise above it all; that and our
> transported-prisoner heritage.
>
> To that end, I have developed a new hand-calculator device, based on
> the Hewlett-Packard models. Instead of using RPN (Reverse Polish
> Notation) for input it uses AIN (Australian Inverted Notation). But
> there's one problem...
>
> They don't sell. Nobody seems to care for them at all. Can you tell
> me what I'm doing wrong?
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} You need some spokesfolks. Celebrities that the public knows
} as experts at being upside down.
} --------------------------------------------------------------------
} Consider Batman:
}
} Batman: I spend my rest time hanging from my feet. I do my best
} thinking that way. You will too with [ Product Name ].
} --------------------------------------------------------------------
} Or consider this trio of saints hung upside down, Saint Sebastian,
} Usires Aedon, and Ben.
}
} Sebastian: I would have died for a [ Product Name ]!
}
} Aedon: [ Product Name ]! Once you get the hang of it, you'll flip!
}
} Ben: Help!
} --------------------------------------------------------------------
} Or even Monica Lewinski:
}
} Monica: I suck, but [ Product Name ] doesn't!
} --------------------------------------------------------------------
} Hmm, okay scratch that last one, but the other ideas have merit.
}
} You owe the Oracle some buttered toast.
--- 1203-06 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Christophe
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> THE DEATH OF PYTHIA
> CHAPTER 2
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} After laying there in her coffin for 7000 years, Pythia remained
} quite dead.
}
} To be continued...
--- 1203-07 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Dave Hemming
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> Hallo, it is I, Andrew again. Mum is becoming somewhat distraught over
> all the questions that some disrespectful people are sending to you in
> which they pretend to be her. I swear that I'm not writing all of
> them! One or two, perhaps. But not all.
>
> Could you please do this. Any time you receive a question that
> purports to be from "The Queen of England" would you -not- make a
> special reply directly to her. Just answer it through the normal
> channels as you would any other supplication you might receive. I know
> that you know her private e-mail address, but she's finding it to be a
> bit like spam. Remember, she's not writing any of those questions at
> all, except that one last week in which she pretended to be Dad (HRH
> Philip).
>
> How did you like the question I sent you yesterday in which I pretended
> to be His Holiness the Late Pope John XXIII? Wasn't that a hoot? Why
> haven't you answered it yet? You DID get it, didn't you?
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} The 'Oracle' no longer exists. I am the Woodchuck! That is why your
} mother has been receiving direct replies to questions she hasn't asked.
} The Oracle knew she would never sign herself 'The Queen of England' to
} him; to him she would always be 'Lizzy' or, when she'd said something
} that made him feel a little frisky, 'Betsy'. Just as Margrethe II was
} always 'Mags', Princess Stephanie was always 'Stiffy Babe' and Princess
} Michael of Kent was always drunk. Or was that the other one? I forget.
}
} So in answer to your questions (and incidentally, now that I'm in
} charge there will be no more of this Royal prerogative for multiple
} askmes in a single mail):
}
} No. I can't. Being by nature a rodent, there's very little you can say
} to or about me that will change this. And don't bother sending that
} Bond bloke, I'm a protected species.
} I hated your question. It was meaty and lacked hardened vegetative
} fibres, sap, and any kind of deceased exoskeletal qualities it might
} have possessed at some stage or other were, well, deceased by the time
} it reached me. Pope John XXIII was a friend of mine, and I was very
} distraught to suddenly find a message purporting to be from him. I
} mean, the server's not that slow. Oh, and yes I did get it.
}
} From now on, all questions will be as follows:
}
} How many questions would a Woodchuck answer
} If a Woodchuck felt like answering questions?
}
} or thereabouts. No more of this seeking deeper knowledge rubbish. If
} it's not wood based in some way, it's not going to be answered.
}
} You owe the Oracle some Chateau Boit 'Hector & Piny' 1976 (a fine,
} fruity sap, and a very good year).
--- 1203-08 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Dr. Noe
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> Your Oracularitudinalness!
> You shine in the night like Chernobyl bat whiz!
> In your idle moments, you wrestle with the weighty
> matters of the universe, such as:
> "Survivor, or Friends?"
> Your aspirated sputum knows more than Dr. Science!
>
> I grovel before you like the dirt that I am, begging your
> Augustitude for some small bit of wisdom, falling from you
> as unnoticed, and as chewy, as a piece of exfoliated skin!
>
> When Fufu the lipstick-wearing caribou greps the colorless
> bungee moussaka, and the wheel of the quivering meat conception
> dances prantibulously across yesterday's diseased futuristic
> imaginings which are smeared across the conceptual sky like
> lamb vindaloo across Christina Aguilera's shoulders, then what
> can a poor boy do 'cept to sing for a rock 'n' roll band?
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} 'Twas Fufu and the caribou
} Did bunge and quiver in the meat,
} All vindal were the futurists,
} And the Aguilera's all neat.
}
} Beware the Supplicant, my girl,
} The lambs the bleat,
} The shoulders that smear,
} Beware the sky-like vindaloo,
} And shun the prantibulous Ear.
}
} She took her concept sword in hand,
} Long time the bungee foe she sought.
} So rested she by the lipstick tree,
} And stood awhile in thought.
}
} And as in poor 'ol thought she stood,
} The Supplicant with eyes aflame
} Came grepping through the bandy wood,
} And babbled as it came.
}
} One Two! One Two! And through and through,
} The concept sword went Snicker-Snack.
} She left it dead and with its head
} She went imagining back.
}
} And hast though slain the Supplicant?
} Come to my arms, my colorless girl!
} Oh Rock! Oh Roll! Moussaka shoal!
} He dance-ed in his whorl.
}
} 'Twas Fufu and the caribou
} Did bunge and quiver in the meat,
} All vindal were the futurists,
} And the Aguilera's all neat.
}
} You owe the Oracle a Unix build of the Jabberwocky plugin for
} QuarkXPress.
--- 1203-09 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: "Michael A. Atkinson"
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> Oracle Most Wise,
>
> If Hercules was alive today and was compelled to perform
> his 12 Great Feats of Penance in our modern world, what
> would those 12 Labors be????
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} Great news! Hercules IS alive today! The Oracle told him to perform
} twelve labors; these Twelve Labors were:
}
} Administer tetanus shots to the lion of Nemea. He strangled it.
}
} Give psychological counseling to the nine-headed Hydra. Two new
} personalities would manifest in the Hydra from each fresh conversation,
} and one was immortal. Hercules put the immortal one under a rock and
} burned the rest.
}
} Take the Ceryneian Hind walkies. After running after it for many
} months, he finally trapped it and killed it by clubbing it to death;
} this is one of the reasons a statue of Hercules always has a club.
}
} Tag the wild boar of Erymanthus, the last of an endangered species.
} After a wild drinking session, Hercules won. The tag was unfortunately
} placed on a lady by the name of 'Missy'.
}
} Clean the Augean Stables of King Augeas. He succeeded only by diverting
} a nearby river to wash the muck away. 400 local villagers were made
} homeless, the dam was constructed of inferior materials and developed
} dangerous cracks shortly after it was finished, and the local fishermen
} were driven out of business.
}
} Build an aviary for the carnivorous birds of Stymphalis. Hercules built
} a giant electric aviary, and set up a carvery restaurant underneath.
}
} Capture the wild bull of Crete. Not only did he capture it, he fed it
} recycled farm slurry, former-chicken protein feed, and fibrous case
} packing bits until it developed BSE. Then he sold it to the Belgians,
} who sold it to McDonalds, who sold it to people who thought, way back
} in the early '90s, that no-one would be stupid enough to use old dairy
} herds for meat.
}
} Capture the man-eating mares of Diomedes. Hercules went to a casino.
} With blackjack. And hookers. Eventually he married a man eating
} cocktail waitress called Lurleen.
}
} Obtain a girdle for Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons. Hercules
} actually came through on this one, although he wasn't terribly PC about
} it: he was supposed to go and buy her a new one - but instead he just
} got her real toasted and told her she was in no fit state to drive
} home, and he had a spare room, and...well, you get the picture.
} Actually, if you do get the picture, the money is in a safe-deposit at
} Banc Suiss, call number 00939947734TauRho994845. As for Set, he can pay
} his own share for once, just make sure you cut off the side with me,
} Lisa and Kendai on before you publish.
}
} Capture the oxen of Geryon. Another cow related one. This time the
} great buffoon captured some ordinary oxen and put them on 'Jerry
} Springer' - thus the reference to 'meaty moments' on the ad for his
} latest out-takes video.
}
} Take the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides, which was
} always guarded by the dragon Ladon. Hercules tricked Atlas into getting
} the apples by offering to hold the Earth for Atlas. When he returned
} with the apples, Hercules asked him to take the Earth for a moment so
} he could go get a cider press, "and then the real fun would begin".
} Atlas did so, and Hercules swanked off with the apples (which he never
} delivered to me), but not before punching Atlas in the face a couple of
} times, daring him to hit back, and so on.
}
} Take Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Hades, to the surface world for
} the call of nature. Hercules ate all the food in Hades' fridge, messed
} up all his CD's, put on Hades' favourite suit and got most of Hades'
} beer down it, chipped a lot of Hades' crockery, got Cerberus drunk and
} let him go toilet in Hades' bed, lost Hades' spare set of keys, thumbed
} through all Hades' saucy shots of Persephone and kept the best ones for
} himself, before finally he set up a casino in Hades' living room. With
} blackjack. And hookers.
}
} You owe the Oracle an all-expenses paid hotel penthouse suite so he and
} Hercules and a few close friends can catch up on old times. With
} blackjack. And hookers.
--- 1203-10 --------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: "Alyce M. Wilson"
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> Oh Oracle Most Wise-cracking
>
> I am a writer for a major TV network, and the sitcom I've been writing
> for has just been canned. The prospect of unemployment looms, and my
> shiny-new BMW may be reposessed.
>
> I need an idea for a hit TV show, do you have any suggestions ?
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
} || ||
} ii Sure Fire TV show idea Generator ii
} || ||
} \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
}
} Pick a number between 1 and 7, write it down! This will
} tell you your show's main character.
}
} Pick a number between 8 and 14, this will give you your
} main character's main trait.
}
} Pick a number between 15 and 21, this will give you
} your character's hilariously mismatch of a best pal.
}
} Pick a number between 22 and 28, this will give you
} your main character's trendy job.
}
} Have fun!
}
} -------------+-----------+------------------+----------------------
} Main | Main | Mismatched | Main Character's
} Character | Trait | Best Pal | Trendy Job
} -------------+-----------+------------------+----------------------
} Ax Murder | Nice | NSA analyst | Solar Car Salesperson
} | | | in Finland
} 1| 8 | 15| 22
} -------------+-----------+------------------+----------------------
} Hard core | Bulimic | Self cognizant | Web Page designer
} Trekkie | | milking machine | for a porno site
} 2| 9| 16| 23
} -------------+-----------+------------------+----------------------
} Big game | Undead | New Age | Rave Organizer/
} hunter | Zombie | Crystal seller | XTC dealer
} 3| 10| 17| 24
} -------------+-----------+------------------+----------------------
} Tabby Cat | Psychic | Male Stripper | Mafia Hit man
} 4| 11| 18| 25
} -------------+-----------+------------------+----------------------
} | Torn | Female half of | Auto insurance sales
} Son of a | between | a siamese twin | by day, bouncer at
} former | ballet & | whose other half | private sex club
} President | Pro Rodeo | was separated & | in New Orleans at
} | Clowning | died at birth | night
} 5| 12| 19| 26
} -------------+-----------+------------------+----------------------
} Unemployable | Stronger | Wheel chair | Head custodian of a
} neanderthal | than | bound body | clean-up crew at
} with a love | Hercules | harboring a | a big city morgue
} of Jazz | | dolphin's brain |
} 6| 13| 20| 27
} -------------+-----------+------------------+----------------------
} Mega-Brain & | Deathly | Super Model's |
} Former KGB | afraid of | illegitimate | Tarot card reader
} agent | jellyfish | child |
} 7| 14| 21| 28
} -------------+-----------+------------------+----------------------